Oi… there are moments when snark fails you… so, let’s jump right into it.

On May 23rd, a 22-year-old man named Elliot Rodger killed at least 6 people in a murder spree where he intended to slaughter an entire sorority and burn it to the ground.

It’s yet another spree gun killing in a time littered with them, from an over-entitled misogynist who was bitter and frustrated that a magical hot girlfriend hadn’t wandered in off the street to offer to blow his men’s right activist ass as was his supposed class, gender, and racial right.

And it’s hard to deny that virulent misogyny and bitter objectification of women as the sex class were the main driving force of his rationale, as much like Breivik, he left a lengthy manifesto and a number of vlogs specifically outlining the exact ways in which he felt that women’s failure to “perform” as a gender justified intense violence and mass murder.

Not that that has actually stopped the usual suspects from denying their deliberate hand and trying to hand-wave him as yet another “lone wolf” completely unaffected by the cultures he was obsessively steeped in and a regular member of, to serve as no other example but to illustrate how sad it is when “general crazy disorder” takes away a brain and what’s that? Oh, if all these murders are lone crazy people, then shouldn’t that be met with actual increases in social resources to treating mental illness? What? You’re breaking up. Stop being logical and let us other him before anyone puts together the pieces.

And that’s what’s so frustrating about this case.

It really is “one more case” in a line. This shooting has happened timeless times before, in cases like Mark Lepine’s massacre of École Polytechnique students in Montreal or the spa murders in Milwaukee or Virginia Tech or the millions of incidences of intimate partner violence.

It is the unstudied story of why every mass murderer can be safely gendered as “he” before the first facts come through the wire. It is the why of how each mass shooting usually begins with the murder of a woman and often kills more women than men (or at least intends to). It’s why the most common surgical procedure in this country often carries a death sentence for the doctors who perform it. It’s the itching fear in the back of a woman’s mind as she processes having acquired a stalker or being in a secluded space with an intensely creepy stranger. It’s the societal wide terrorist campaign that is silently unacknowledged and rewritten to be about violent video games and generalized off-hand diagnoses of “he was just crazy”.

It’s why the vast majority of serial killers are all entitled white men with archaic views about women and belong to dominant religious groups and why the vast majority of their victims (especially the “early victims” that aren’t even pieced together until later) are women in ignored or belittled professions (such as sex work). Yet why all the media depictions of serial killers are oddly effeminate and clearly “off” deviants who are usually trans* women or otherwise of non-normative sexuality.

And it’s related to why some sick fucks feel they have a right to murder black teenagers for “not being where they should be” (i.e. anywhere visible to the fucks). It’s related to our general rape culture and the sexualized way right-wingers call for any war they can. It’s related to the bizarre sexual manner in which violence is discussed and why kissing someone of the same gender is seen as more worthy of a higher movie rating than dismembering a woman for some horror movie trope about “sluttiness”. It’s related to a gun culture that has so fetishized the possibility of having an over-the-top justification for murder that I’m not sure most right wingers can even tell the difference between a firing range and a porno. It’s related to the reason that I have to be ever aware of the reality that any rando on the street may feel justified in gunning me down because he thought I was trying to trick his boner.

Many feminists have coined the term “toxic masculinity” to describe it, but that doesn’t fully do justice to the problem, which is a rotting putrescent cancer on our society. It is the rancid, pus-leaking, irradiated mass that teaches young men that violence, especially violence on those deemed feminine (women, gay men, all manner of trans* people, or hell, just any man who is not invested in this race to the bottom) is seen as critical to building one’s own masculinity and retaining any form of homosocial safety. Where an ever-escalating dance of performance, desperate to avoid being determined to be “girly”, encourages viewing sexual encounters as a matter of conquest and trickery, and where abusing or belittling a woman is seen as often more valuable than actually pursuing loving respectful relationships.

It is a stew of lingering gendered resentment at the notion that women, despite the traps of suburbia and antiquated versions of marriage, are yet still people and have been gaining more freedom to choose for themselves how they want to live, what they want to do, who they want to fuck, and whether they even ever want to marry or just enjoy a polyamorous kink-fueled lesbian commune. The bitter pot of misogyny that has led society to slowly acknowledge that things like rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, etc… aren’t minor little jokes, but real societal issues.

And Elliot Rodger is just another of the most potent forms of that come to light, though it has lingered as a major force in countless spree killings and privilege explosions over the “unfair” gains of the formerly powerless.

I mean, despite all the Buffalo Bills in depictions of serial killers and spree murderers, this is what a serial killer looks like. This is what a serial killer sounds like. And this is how he justifies his actions to himself and to the world he narcissistically demands cater to his whims and petulant ideas on how the world should work (oh by the way, what follows is Elliot Rodger’s actual final manifesto before engaging in his little kill fest, so if you think that you would like to sleep tonight, there is no shame in just giving it a miss altogether:

For those who foolishly decided to sample of those poisoned mangos, yeah. Entitlement and bitter resentment pours out so thoroughly it is almost a parody of the problem that underlies so many other murders and beatings and other acts of violence towards marginalized groups.

Rodger didn’t just despise women. He despised them for failing to fulfill their “proscribed” role in treating his boner needs and heeding their better judgement of not wanting to be fitted inside a refrigerator coffin. And he despised them for this supposed “failure” of their “role” despite never actually pursuing any actual women, rather instead expecting them to just divine automagically that they needed to perform their magic boner role and “cure” his sad boner needs.

There are a number of articles written about the full thrust of his manifesto and his various comments online. Unsurprisingly he was intensely classist, expecting that having the right expensive accessories inherently made him better than others. He was also racist, becoming bitterly upset that “inferior” black and asian men had fulfilling relationships when he did not. He was a regular at various MRA sites and was versed enough in Pick-Up Artistry (a vile subculture that basically crafts those douchebags at the bar who ruin your night by creepily invading your space and doing borderline (and not-so-borderline) rapey things to dominate your time) to become intensely bitter that the supposed magic techniques (of assaulting women and acting like a dick about it) wasn’t the panty-dropping superpower it was claimed to be. He was socially right-wing and a gun fetishist and identified strongly with the “incel” community which is a community of bitter virgins who blame all women everywhere by committing a war against men by supposedly only dating a handful of ubermenschen and other conspiracy theories to somehow explain why women having sexual and romantic freedom is some terrible anti-male crime for which violence and rape are now justified.

He felt owed a random young blonde, presumably sexually adventurous (but with low self-esteem and regard) thing despite having an obvious lack of interest in any actual person attracted to the free-floating bits he regarded more as his ticket to fulfilling a requirement of toxic masculine approval than any actual enjoyable mutual activity about shared joy.

And so, he escalated from his “harmless” stalking and violent threats to (in his sick fucking rationale) “justified” murder.

Yet another example in a damn obscene line ever egged on by subcultures happy to breed yet more violent murderers who can create a terrorism for marginalized groups they hate and a society too frightened to actually acknowledge the toxicity that spawns this form of violent entitled hate for those deemed “lesser” and the way our very culture encourages this endless stream of “lone wolf crazies” and only too happy to dismiss it as “yet another crazy person” to be swept under the carpet.

And frankly, it’s enough to bring one down and make one feel completely powerless against the gears of our social machine.

I mean, we want to talk about the futility of doing a damn thing about our country’s sick attitude on gun laws? About making it difficult for these violent fucks to slaughter them a clean half-dozen without breaking a sweat? Well, how can we simple few ever make a dent against the self-feeding spiral of toxic masculinity and the desperate panic that drives some men to become worse and worse humans to get the approval of the worst our species has to offer?

But who knows, maybe something is finally changing. The fucking President showed up on the screen of my last movie outing and spoke specifically to men about stopping sexual assault. The “pro-life” facade is crumbling and there are finally political consequences for being intensely misogynist. Being a professional woman-hater is finally starting to look like as bad a long-term career path as being a professional homophobe.

Maybe, slowly the tide of blood is forcing us to actually acknowledge the poison in our veins.

…

So maybe it’s not entirely surprising that Dr. Helenbot has some epic ghoulish bullshit in response to this latest tragedy.

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

Ungh, so you mean old straw-feminists are almost sort of blaming the men’s rights hate movement for yanno, breeding yet another serial killer, well um, er, fwip-ptang my friend. I’m rubber and you’re glue so it’s really you who are responsible for breeding a mass murderer. After all, isn’t a blowjob from time to time to every random guy who walks down the street a small price to pay for not being shot in the face by one of our bitter, resentful, violent killers?

I mean, Dr. Helenbot is Grade-A Stepford, perfectly hand-crafted by Glen “Ha, indeedy” Reynolds to be the perfect model of his particular brand of gynophobic technophilic 1950s unconsensual roleplay fetish. And Dr. Helenbot is damned if her worn-out and ill-used servos and databanks are going to carry the unmitigated hell of those encounters without every organic female unit on the planet suffering for it.

As such, much in the smirking distancing, but not really distancing way anti-immigrants danced around Breivik, Dr. Helenbot has joined the other professional misogynists who counted Elliot Rodger among their readership in trying to hand-wave away the obvious for fear that reality may injure the poor money that keeps this gravy train a rollin’.

But hey, why hear me talk about it, when we can listen to the squeaking gears and overclocked fans of the world’s most abused semi-sentient sex doll?

Elliot Rodger has made a name for himself, just as he wished.

Yes, I’m sure that was the main concern everyone had in this tragedy.

Oh, I do so hope that nice ranting, creepy-laughing, fuckwit who thought he had a right to kill people because he hadn’t gotten laid while 22 (as if that was at all odd or uncommon) became internet famous. It would so make up for the unpleasantness of all those uncleanly blood-stains on the floor stemming directly from the rhetoric and mythologies that people like Dr. Helenbot perpetuate…

All over the internet, writers and journalists are speculating about why he killed himself and six other people.

You know journalists. Such gossips.

Always wanting to dish about non-stories like some fuck deliberately targeting women for a spree-killing. I mean, don’t they know that there are men with sad boners out there?!?

Over at Slate, writer Amanda Hess has even lowered the bar to blaming the Pick-Up Artists and associated others for turning Rodger into a killer. She denies this a bit in her piece, of course, perhaps to make her argument look more legitimate, but blame them she does:

I do not blame the Pick-Up Artist community (or its somehow even more deeply tortured counterpart, the Anti-Pick-Up-Artist community) for the deaths of seven people.

…

1) Okay, nothing, and I mean, nothing is more infuriatingly comic gold as the deep ignorance right-wingers have in directly quoting the shit that disproves their point, while somehow pretending they haven’t scored the mother of all own goals. I mean, not to endorse the usual style of right-wing dishonesty, but it would be simplicity to bury a link or just not link to an argument altogether and fill in whatever web of smear-jobbery and other bullshit you can.

I mean, yes, I get that the point of this is less an actual deconstruction and rather an excuse to sic the exact sort of creepy violent fuck who would religiously read Dr. Helen articles on a designated fe-male organism in order to exploit shit like Rodger’s murders in order to fuel the terroristic threat behind campaigns of death and rape threats, but you could at least fake like you’re hiding it.

2) That trip down your rabbit hole aside, um… yes, PUAs were directly responsible for these murders. Elliot Rodger was deeply invested in PUA philosophy and spent a great deal of time not only on PUA sites, but later on sites specifically devoted to bitter former marks who were angry that PUA techniques weren’t working fast enough to fulfill his misogynist entitlements. His manifesto is covered in PUA mythologies such as hypergamy, “alphas and betas”, “girls only date jerks and assholes”, and belief in himself to be a Nice Guy TM “gentleman” and his bitterness about women was encouraged and fueled by the amount of time he spent mired in that culture.

Much like Breivik before him, Rodger is getting a close-examination entirely because it is not a simple matter to discount and erase the culture that spawned him and pretend he came freshly-spawned from Kooky-Murderous-Weirdoes ‘R Us.

I have often stated that the thing right-wingers hate most is credit for their accomplishments.

And yet again that is proven absolutely correct as the fucks who spawned this violent fuck and so many other violent fucks to feel justified in all manner of violence, stalking, harassment, rape and death threats, terrorist campaigns, targeted financial destruction, etc… are waving their hands as if it is some sort of unfair violation of their sacred rights as overprivileged hate groups to not look at the actual words their disciple lovingly inscribed from their teachings.

3) Lowered the bar, please. You write for PJ Media. I don’t think you get to criticize anyone for “lowering the bar”.

But hey, back to the eeeeeevil article that has Dr. Helenbot riling her winged monkeys over.

The man who committed this horrific crime is responsible for this heinous act. But I was interested to see how these groups are reacting to the news. It is disturbing, if not surprising, that they are using these murders to reinforce their hatred of women and “Beta” men, and to cement their own status at the top of the pyramid.

What? A mere woman dared notice that the same fucks who spawned this killer were exploiting it to reinforce the same toxic mythologies that gave justification to Rodger’s desire to murder? And she dared do so in an overly fair style that mostly lets said men off the hook for their ghoulishness and failure to learn from their “mistakes” (as if this was an unintentional result and an unintentional result for any hate group (see anti-abortion terrorists))?

KILL HER!!!!… Wait, I mean, er… you know what I mean, wink wink, say no more.

Why did seven people die in Santa Barbara last night? It would be wrong to pin the crime on Internet forums that indulge in self-hatred, then project it on to everyone else.

Silly Slate writer, don’t you know that IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION!

But they’re certainly not the solution. Misogyny and violence against women is a social problem as well as an individual one. The fact that these men see “game” as the remedy to all personal and social ills is perhaps the greatest indictment of the way they view the world.

Yes, I see what it so inherently and clearly inflammatory and unfair here… if I was also a soulless machine, unencumbered by unwanted sympathy to so-called organics.

But seeing as I am sadly a creature of flesh, blood, and bone, I’m afraid the real travesty is the way these terrorist actions really do work to silence and quelle dissent and have real impact on the actions that minority groups so targeted feel safe engaging in.

I mean, even the most “fuck you, I do what I want” among us find our patterns being limited when a latest tragedy happens, find ourselves that much less confident in our ability to hold our own and defend our experiences in this world. My black relatives may feel free usually but there is a terror in being out at night in the suburbs for fear of a trigger-happy resident or cop. My partner may be strong and accomplished in her right, but a recent bashing makes her hesitant to kiss her girlfriends as openly as her male partners and a recent spat of violence makes her less willing to speak her mind online in defense of her feminist views.

And as much as I loathe to admit it, the shadow of every person on the Transgender Day of Remembrance lists, especially the trans* activists who were killed only a matter of years ago in my general area does affect how much I unconsciously remain hyper-aware of my surroundings when I’m out as myself.

This shit really does reverberate and work to make marginalized groups just that little bit less confident about defending their rights…

Which is exactly why this stuff keeps happening and why these hate groups do not react the way a real organization would if one of their members turned out to be using the group’s teachings to justify horrific violence. And why they will do everything in their power to encourage other “lone wolfs” that it would be “unfair” to link to them.

But hey, enough of the random target, let’s get back to the meat of the apologetics.

1) By “many people”, Dr. Helenbot seems to mean a particularly infamous Men’s Right Activist and fellow professional misogynist JudgyBitch who is regularly skewered on We Hunted the Mammoth (formerly Manboobz) for well… basically penning some truly awful apologetics for rape culture, domestic violence, assault, etc… Basically, she’s your standard issue capo that hate groups like to carry these days as a supposed go-to get out of bigotry jail free card (shut up, English is hard). I particularly “love” her missive about how lacking sexual attraction is a form of abuse against men (hey, didn’t I have acephobia on my bigotry scavenger hunt a while back?)

2) Um… how is this logic supposed to have worked. I mean, yes, okay, I get it, clearly the point is to throw a complete bizarre “refutation” that allows you to throw a smokebomb and run away from the nice men looking over exactly what culture could have birthed such an angry conceited young man, but still, ignoring that, how was this supposed to work as actual, you know, logic.

You don’t actually get points for targeting a minority group for destruction and then accidentally ending up killing more people who don’t identify as the group because of war or opportunity or because that’s who is around.

I mean, no one actually gives a fuck about the Holocaust Denier yarn about Hitler killing more civilians and soldiers in World War II than Jews in the Holocaust because it’s such obvious bullshit that doesn’t at all mitigate that Hitler’s intention was the slaughter of all of Europe’s Jewish population.

And you can call godwin on me if you like, but I’m afraid it’s a little bit hard to not notice that you are literally recycling a Holocaust Denier argument in order to excuse your little mass murderer. It’s just one of those details that are a little fucking distracting!

3) No, I’m still stuck on the whole recycling a Holocaust Denier argument. Oh, what delightful company you keep, Ms. Self-Hating Robot.

Of course, the men he killed don’t count; the main story here is that women were targeted and it makes for a more sympathetic story.

Yes. Yes it is.

Because he targeted them.

Because he went out into the street, knowing he was going to kill him some “bitches” and believing that a variety of misogynistic fantasies justified mass-fucking-murder. Because those men would have gone home, would have found love and made careers and had full fucking lives full of mistakes and joys and pain and fucking life if this little shit hadn’t decided he needed to shoot himself a house full of random blonde women because of his sexist belief that he was “owed” a woman by a certain point in his life.

Because, quite frankly, and with a minimal amount of hyperbole, those men would not be dead if Elliot Rodger didn’t go out and target a group of women in their general area for death.

It doesn’t erase those men. In fact, it makes their deaths ever the more pointless and tragic and it is why the families of those victims are having little fucking sympathy for the fee-fees of the fuckers who made this sort of tragedy possible.

And it gives us some of the clues on how to stop these pointless and unfortunately regular murders from happening.

Also, writers like Hess above can use the killings to really stick it to Pick-Up Artist types that she sees as deserving of blame. It’s all political fodder.

Back in 2008 when I was first starting to write for my personal blog, I wrote a number of articles about the way that far too many fuckers seem to consider politics as some sort of fucking game of soccer. As if the sole point of every interaction is to “score points” against the enemy and the assumption that the other side must feel the same way and be motivated by the same thing. At the time, I identified it as the main operating mechanism for conservatism and the reason that tribal victory trumps minor little things like species survival or common-fucking-sense so often.

And I maintain that that is still true. Dr. Helenbot is so used to her little Pong game of minor victories against the filthy organic womankind that causes the lesser Mr. Reynolds (Go Browncoats) to mistreat her so, that she cannot imagine a world where her “opponents” are doing the same.

So even now, when there is literal blood and the terroristic threat looms high and people just try and piece together the aftermath, she is still playing on the empty field, gloating over all the “goals” she is scoring, unaware that they are into her own net.

And you know… painfully revelatory of her synthetic inorganic nature. Which is to say, I’m glad she’s a robot, because otherwise, I might have to wonder how someone can get so ghoulish.

I will note again that Judgy Bitch is an infamous professional misogynist whose usual output is shit like this article blaming child survivors of sexual assault for the entirety of their abuse (which totally wasn’t abuse in her eyes, because apparently there really are people stupid enough to think that Lolita was a true story with a reliable narrator).

But hey, apparently being aware of who someone quotes is misandry that leads to mass slaughter now, so what the fuck do I know?

The fact is that Elliot’s outburst does indeed highlight an issue of central importance to the MHRM – the inadequate, almost non-existent treatment of mental health problems for young men. Socially, our treatment seems to be to wait until the tortured young man puts a bullet in his own head, and just pray that he doesn’t take innocent victims with him.

As a strategy for health, it’s not working very well.

Compare that to how we respond to women who are mentally fragile after giving birth. We screen for Post Partum Depression and throw money and resources into keeping both the women and their children safe, because if we don’t do that, a lot of babies will end up dead. Women struggle with mental issues, too, and take it out on the innocent. But rather than ignore those women and hope for the best, we create programs designed to identify and help them.

Errrrnnggggh.

Okay, I think I’m officially fucking tired of the same old “oh the lone wolf was just crazy, we should “improve mental health resources”/”make life a living hell for anyone suffering from mental illness” narratives that are latched onto in every mass murder in order to excuse the toxic masculinity and gun fetishization that leads to this shit.

I mean, yes, please, more mental health resources would be great. It would be awesome if people weren’t avoiding getting the help they need because they think seeing a therapist is a sign of weakness. Or if people could be out about what’s going on in their heads without putting themselves at risk for discrimination and termination. Or if mental health medication was easily accessed for all populations. Or hell if there wasn’t a massive stigma around admitting that you’re a crazy fucker.

Or hey, you know, if say, they didn’t get blamed for every violent fuck ranting about how they hate all women/blacks/jews/gays/etc… under the logic that gosh, wanting to kill people is inherently crazy, so hey, let’s ignore all the hate and where they got that shit.

Or at the very least if this cul-de-sac wasn’t the be-all end-all of the conversation after every one of these shootings. What? An anti-government obsessive with a massive bug up his butt about an uppity congresswoman who schooled him shoots her up at a rally? Oh, hmm, maybe one day we should do something about all the crazies, oh well, let’s move on. What? A young man steeped in gun fetishist right-wing culture gets upset at his mom and decides to take it out on her and the school she worked at? Crazies, whatcha gonna do? A man buys a fucking military grade arsenal to take out a theater full of unarmed people wanting to see a growling man punch baddies for two hours? Craziescraziescrazies, ENOUGH!

Sorry, it’s just the part that is especially galling is that it has become so obviously a distraction campaign from any real conversation on what can prevent this, instead aiding in mythologies of fear that aid in ever-increasing stockpiling and paranoia and the low-lying threat that that stockpiling has for marginalized groups. Making it all about crazies that we’ll someday maybe start thinking about almost having resources for in the unspecified future allows a state of inertia and learned helplessness about the process, draining us of any will to fight the real enemies that make this shit KEEP HAPPENING OVERANDFUCKINGOVER AGAIN and holy fuck I’m starting to hate this fucking rhetorical strategy by the fuckers who most profit by these unexamined “lone wolfs” (cough cough, I’m looking at you NRA).

And it’s extra galling when the fuckers who create this culture of violence are first in line to cheer on the “crazy hypothesis” and nothing else.

Perhaps it is the feminists and their supporters who block funding and education going to boys’ and men’s issues that are to blame. Case in point? Warren Farrell tried to give a talk in Toronto about suicide in young men and other topics and was accosted by nasty feminists who did not want him to speak.

A) Um, how does that follow. Hey, you feminists block funding to men’s issues that prevent them from getting mental health and instead drive them to extreme hatred of all women, like that time that you protested an extreme misogynist selling a poisoned ideology of blaming all one’s mental health issues on “dem evil bitches”. I mean, yes, IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION, but holy fuckballs, can we at least get an all-star attempt on said projection?

Yeah, these are horrible people to quote, but I mean, that’s what you get when you quote Men’s Rights fuckers. It’s like quoting the Klan, they’re all terrible people.

C) Yeah, I actually remember that men’s rights obsession. If I recall correctly, it involved internet stalking all of the protestors at the event, even going so far as to put out a bounty on several of the women involved in the protest, claiming all manner of “horrible vile actions” for the terrible crime of not being sufficiently deferent to a creepy old child-molesty old man who is the founder of a hate movement that led to a constant outpouring of rape and death threats and many calls for outright murder by prominent members of the MRAs (so you know, basically an average Tuesday for these fucks).

Yeah, gosh, I wonder why people weren’t all that shocked when an MRA-obsessed narcissist decided to go on a killing spree for imaginary “crimes”. It’s not like that was explicitly MODELED FOR HIM OR ANYTHING!

D) Oh yeah, on that whole mental health thing. Seeing as how Farrell’s talk wasn’t so much on preventing male suicides, but using male suicide numbers to argue that women were secretly trying to kill all men and thus men are justified in “retaliating in kind” with violence. And seeing as how the MRAs response to any actual attempt to do something to decrease suicide among men was to outright ignore it in favor of harassing women. I feel quite confident saying fanden du to your self-serving lying ass murder-inducing horseshit, you sick fucking profiteer and OH MY FUCKING BOB, I HATE THESE PEOPLE!

As a psychologist who has worked with men and boys for over 20 years,

I weep for every client of any gender identity that has had the misfortune of your cold metallic guesstimate of what actual help looks like. And I hope that once they recover, they seek out actual, competent mental health care.

I can say that our society is devoid of programs and help for mental health issues for men or we try to give help that is not helpful. We focus on women and forget that boys and men have problems too.

Yessss, women are sucking up all the mental health resources with their witchy little fingers, cackling every time they block a man from making that appointment to help them with a really tough time.

That’s clearly the problem blocking men from mental health access. Not say, a toxic form of masculinity that paints getting help and processing one’s emotions on an honest and vulnerable wavelength as a form of weakness and feminization deserving of abuse. Or social systems that pray on bitterness and depression in order to hard-sell mythologies that blame minority groups for secret reverse-oppressions for political gain instead of getting people to work on the issues that lead them to want to seek out say, myths that they are inherently better than black folks. Nor, the way that men are encouraged to ignore all emotions in general and open communication in relationships as “girly” things thus dooming them to broken relationships and untreated emotional pain. And certainly not the way men are discouraged from talking about their suffering in homosocial spaces.

Nope, all the fault of women. They need to stop getting mental health care and hey, maybe dole out a few blowjobs to strangers to prevent them getting all bang, bang, shoot, shoot for the good of teh menz.

And if say, they are not feeling particularly charitable towards teh menz what with this latest example of misogyny-fueled mass-murder, well, then, clearly they are the real problem that leads to misogynist hate groups preying on depression and frustration to encourage violent terrorism against those women who dared try to live without them.

Cause that’s MRA logic.

Instead of blaming Pick-Up Artists, or feminists for that matter,

Oh how generous my liege, you blame feminists and then offer to take back blaming feminists in exchange for no one noticing how PUA philosophy was central to how Elliot Rodger built up his twisted worldview of what was owed to him as a (in his own eyes) white young rich man (or as he would put it, “gentleman” and gosh, all the dog whistles packed into that).

Yeah, no, I think we’re all done being implicitly threatened off actually talking about the real fucking problems that cause this shit.

why don’t we look for real solutions when it comes to men and boys who feel desperate enough to harm others?

Mmm hmm. Well seeing as how he was already seeing therapists regularly, had supportive family, and we’re supposed to just erase the gun fetishization and MRA/PUA soaking, I guess that leaves, what? Fulfilling his demand of a random sex object by having some poor conventionally attractive young blonde woman magically divine who needs a good screwing they don’t deserve to save us all… as if that would have stopped anything.

I mean, look at Virginia Tech, which began because he had a girlfriend who left him because he was a creepy abusive fuck. Or all the other violent assholes who started with their wives or girlfriends and escalated to kids and then to strangers.

And isn’t it past time that women kept taking the hits for these entitled violent assholes? As if “reforming” these broken toxic masculinity obsessed fuckwads was a) their job, b) even possible. Isn’t it time we asked these men to grow up, accept that women are people and stop trying to out-man each other based on what they saw in the latest 80s retro action thriller?

Or is asking these fucks to even slightly inconvenience themselves, either by accepting common sense restrictions on their death dildos or by performing the minimum of personal growth, something that will always be viewed as a step too far by the same kind of entitled shit lords as Elliot Rodger was?

Perhaps then, we will be on our way to reducing these mass killings.

Or we could rightfully notice you and your ilk encouraging these fucks while trying to deny your successes. And finally actually bring real reforms and penalties for this kind of open threat.

Perhaps one day, we could be like Norway, who responded to Breivik’s attempt to instill American right philosophy in Norwegian politics through terroristic force by doubling down on liberalism and resistance to that poisoned philosophy. Who recognized the rot and the incident as a call to arms to treat the source of the infection rather than an excuse to let it spread.

Perhaps we can rid ourselves of toxic masculinity, MRAs, PUAs, gun fetishism, and all the various flavors of overprivileged douchebags viewing minor inconvenience as some sort of minority community plot…

And maybe this fantasy world can have a magical rainbow unicorn I can ride on when I travel to the Magic Gumball Kingdom, cause… these days? That shit seems just as much a desperate fantasy.

As a psychologist who has worked with men and boys for over 20 years, I can say that our society is devoid of programs and help for mental health issues for men or we try to give help that is not helpful

Shorter psychologist: Psychotherapy is a waste of time. Case in point: Elliot Rodger, who had been in therapy for most of his life. Therefore we should give more money to psychotherapy.
I blame all those liberals who snuck into Congress disguised as Republicans in order to cut back on funding for mental health.

You should call him the UCSB Shooter or something other than his name. The names of attention-seeking mass murderers should not be bannided about.

I feel conflicted because I have an internet friend who is an anti-feminist equalitarian. She is female but I doubt she’s doing it for male attention. She says she isn’t afraid of male strangers and she’s been a victim of harassment by girls. I think she has some good points.

You should call him the UCSB Shooter or something other than his name. The names of attention-seeking mass murderers should not be bannided about.

I agree with everything but your spelling…

I feel conflicted because I have an internet friend who is an anti-feminist equalitarian. She is female but I doubt she’s doing it for male attention. She says she isn’t afraid of male strangers and she’s been a victim of harassment by girls. I think she has some good points.

You kno, that whole “don’t blame the culture that spawned him, he’s one deranged man” shtick would be a lot more convincing if they also applied it to Muslims, black people, poor people, union employees…

the mangoes are about what you would expect with mostly progressives and feminists to blame…also, a couple of votes for obama being to blame…and of course, if more people had guns there would be less mass shootings, but out of all of them, here’s my favorite:

According to todays feminists, even looking at women is equivalent to rape. Therefore a burka is a liberating garment

Some guy: Thanks for the link. Great story, especially the dialogue, the first-person account of the guy in his own words. This is a wonderful example of written language giving life to vivid spoken language: You can hear the speaker’s voice in your head.(*)

Everyone else: As you can surmise, I highly recommend the article (despite its annoying font) to everyone. There is something in it for everyone.

(*) This happens in my writing. It is as if I’m simply transcribing conversation of others, not consciously fabricating anything as Fenwick. Let the characters do the work whenever a story uses dialogue.

We screen for Post Partum Depression and throw money and resources into keeping both the women and their children safe, because if we don’t do that, a lot of babies will end up dead.

First, I would like to comment on the (extremely rare) appearance of concern for the post-born. But mainly, she reveals the usual “nothing to see here, not a real person” attitude of the RW wrt the person suffering the PPD. I am here to tell you that the person most at risk of dying from the PPD afflucting my mother after she had me was not me. She made a very credible effort at killing herself, and damn near succeeded.

The fact is, radical feminists have been undermiring American Men for dikhades only now the ckickings are coming home to roast so they blame pigk-up artist! The feminazis are even against artists and against art! And Art was never even charged with rap in the first playce because shorty-shorts and tube top, so theirs proof of everything Dr. Hellen said. Also the killer guy used KNIVES, but the feminists and libtards on lye take about GUNS. That makes all you libs hippocritical.

Trouble with the voices is when they start inviting all their friends.

Three films I highly recommend involve patients in psychiatric wards.12 Monkeys features a terrific performance by Brad Pitt as a patient with a personality disorder, in full-blown manic-manipulative mode. (This was the role that convinced me Brad Pitt was more than a pretty-boy actor; he had real acting chops.)

Girl, Interrupted features Angelina Jolie’s great portrayal of a fully-institutionalized patient with a severe personality disorder. Winona Ryder, the central character, portrays a woman with treatable borderline schizophrenia. Superb supporting cast in the ward.

A Beautiful Mind Brilliant evocation of paranoid-schizophrenia from the victim’s POV. Russell Crowe’s best performance. Great supporting performances from Ed Harris and Paul Bettany as personifications of his voices.

Girl, Interrupted features Angelina Jolie’s great portrayal of a fully-institutionalized patient with a severe personality disorder. Winona Ryder, the central character, portrays a woman with treatable borderline schizophrenia. Superb supporting cast in the ward.

Can I just say as a young gal I really appreciated even a cast of TWO different mentally ill women in a film? This movie left a huge impression on me as a young crazy person and I still look back fondly on the relationship, as odd as it was, that was portrayed between the two female main characters.

Down the long hallways of life I still find myself looking back on that depiction.

“As a psychologist who has worked with men and boys for over 20 years, I can say that our society is devoid of programs and help for mental health issues for men or we try to give help that is not helpful.”

That disclaimer “not helpful” is pretty helpful. However, ahem, even at glance, the stats for institutionalization for psych care of whatever sort look strongly skewed toward men. Is there an equivalent of the VA for women? (Yes, it’s coed but it’s still mostly men.) Doh. I’m thankful she didn’t go into any detail about helpful programs for men. (20 years? What does she do at the office?)

no, dennis, because he didn’t offer any other insight other than these particlular family members had to ‘flee their home’ and they ran and ran and ran to a displaced persons camp and that the women and his uncles were shot into a mass grave…i was commenting on his portrayal of his family’s history, which he seems to have confused with privilege…and it’s a family history for which he didn’t seem to care about until he was in college and felt he was being picked on by people who were simply telling him to consider how lucky he happens to be in his little world, btw…like i said, it just struck me as a trying to save their own asses move when i read it since he was going on about the considerable character his family possessed…to me, it would have been much more compelling if he had explained why they had to flee…and yes, it was likely a rash and ill-advised comment on my part, but that’s how it struck me at the time…and aren’t you glad i made it so you have another stick to beat me with?

To whom does one give the benefit of the doubt? The ivy league student whose claims to moral superiority rest on his appropriation of his grandparent’s suffering and his own success in a system expressly designed to identify and promote overachieving under-empathic people like himself? Even when he explicitly rejects the moral standing of people who, for all he knows endured suffering on the same level as his grandparents?

Some groups of people in this country have been able to arrive penniless, and by dint of hard work, and good fortune and deliberate assimilation, within a generation or two achieve a standard of living on a par with anyone else in this country. Other groups of people, even ones whose ancestors have been here for centuries, can’t or aren’t allowed to make that happen. The system designed to identify and promote overachieving men deliberately handicaps those who don’t fit the WASP mold. To deny that is the case after doing all of the schoolwork that it takes to get admitted to the ivy league is to display deliberate, mean-spirited, ignorance or to lie like a rug.

And it is easier to believe that the little worm in question is lying than to believe that his life is so sheltered that he never heard of slavery or racism or sexism or the civil rights movement or any goddamn reason at all that some people may have had a different or more trying upbringing than himself. And if he is willing to lie about such a fundamental aspect of life in the USA, just what else is he lying about? I question every damn word of his self-satisfied smug little exercise is self-justification. If he said the sky is blue, I’d go to a window and and check. So when he claims the wartime experiences of his grandparents means he doesn’t need to ask himself if his experience is universal, I refuse to grant that he had grandparents, that there was a war on, and that they suffered in any way from it without independent verification. Because our boy wonder is an unreliable narrator. And furthermore, fuck him and fuck you Dennis.

i never once said he was lying, dennis…and a white woman of privilege? don’t make me laugh…yes, i recognize that as a white woman, i have some advantages, but as you say, i’m ‘sheltered’ here in hooterville i’m only a step above the lower class here…nothing is handed to me here, denny, hubbkf and i’ve worked and sacrificed to get to where we are…which isn’t very far, considering i’m still working two jobs just to make ends meet…i might bitch and whine about it sometimes, but there’s not a day that goes by that i’m not thankful for what i have and recognize that others have it way worse…and being considered ‘clueless’ by you doesn’t shock me, since you continually and willfully mis-read everyone and everything here…

So, where does Alan Keyes explain how the gays keep the other 85% or 95% of humanity from having kids? Does he understand that a man and a woman can have more than 2 children, and that populations can in fact grow?

The pleasurable satisfaction it involves does not draw individuals away from their particular selves toward a concrete physical union (in the child they conceive) that represents the perpetuation of their being as a whole, their human being. Their ecstasy is more like the highest pitch given off by a guitar string just before the turn of the tuning peg that causes it to break.

So, where does Alan Keyes explain how the gays keep the other 85% or 95% of humanity from having kids? Does he understand that a man and a woman can have more than 2 children, and that populations can in fact grow?

and that there’s a bazillion children waiting to be adopted? or fostered? and that not every hetero couple is able to have kids? or that people forgo having kids?

i do like his bit about icarus and flying into the sun at the end though…makes it seem like he almost thought his whole premise through…

if there was some sort of gay co-op where lesbians could be in vitro-oed with the sperm of gay men and they could create a whole new race of super gheys…

You need to pitch that as an erotic scifi thriller or something:

Lead in…

“In the not too distant future, humanity’s very existence is threatened by killer alien nanobots programmed to exterminate all human life. After a critical weakness is found in their design, a brave band of specially-trained multinational homo forces unites to breed THE SUPERGHEYS! Can they ward off the invading forces and bring us back from the brink of doom in time!?!”

[cue tacky porno music and intermixed groups of all types having teh sexytime in every conceivable fashion]

I’d probably get more traffic to my blog if I started writing erotic scifi thrillers.

Semi-related aside: one day in a past job life me and another sysadmin wondered why were suddenly getting a big spike of traffic on one of the web servers. Turns out an employee and his wife wrote StarTrek erotic fanfic and took advantage of the free server space we offered to employees to host it. Man, the writing was fucking terrible, but they seemed to enjoy themselves, and so did lots and lots of other people, I guess.

Why does google allatime think I’m in Seattle? Looking for a Goodwill dropoff location and I get fucking Seattle listings. At least half the goddamn time I google shit on my iPhone and Nexus it thinks I’m in that FSMforsaken hellhole up north.

Keyes sounds pretty convinced that gaysex is so much more pleasurable than the hetero kind.

That’s a common trait in greater whingnuttia. I’ve remarked on it many times over the years. It’s implicit in the “gays recruit” trope, isn’t it? Once you go gay you never go back, apparently. Gay sex is so much better than the boring old hetero kind that one taste of it makes you ghey4life, it would seem. I just can not imagine what it is about gay sex, with its steamy man on man assplowing down the throat ramming hard hairy leather wearing cockmonster action, that fascinates them so. Really, I can’t possibly imagine.

And who among us has never made such a comment? Oh, except for the creature, who nevah evah writes anything but that it is–in his estimation, at least–the very bestest prose evah written. And the troll nevah evah makes a mistake. It is perfect in every way.

And that brings us to other huge differencse between the humans here and the troll. We are capable of errors; we make mistakes; recognize them; apologize and/or correct ourselves. Sometimes we change our minds and change or modify our opinions. (You know, civilization.) That’s right: We are capable of change. The creature is not capable of change, rigid, doctrinaire, brittle.

We also examine our own lives. All of us have delights and passions that have nothing to do with politics; we’re not imprisoned in politics 24/7. We lead lives. In so many ways, there are huge differences between the humans here and the troll.

We also examine our own lives. All of us have delights and passions that have nothing to do with politics; we’re not imprisoned in politics 24/7. We lead lives. In so many ways, there are huge differences between the humans here and the troll.

It’s true that most of us — including DA — meet this description, to the degree that our comments here provide evidence. Dennis is an exception. He rarely reveals anything, and never intentionally makes himself vulnerable to judgment or criticism. Other commenters are similarly cagey, but he’s the one who combines caginess with abundant faux concerns, etc.

Perhaps he engages in self-examination, has apolitical delights and passions, etc. — the difference is that I (among others) expose these things to global scrutiny. My anonymity is paper-thin. It would take five minutes for a capable inquirer to breach it.

So let’s consider Nathaniel Benjamin Smith. He was white supremacist and his victims were Jewish, African-American and South Korean. He killed 10 people, wounded another 10 and then he killed himself during the police chase.

I guess we now have to add him to the body count and say “But he killed a white Christian man too!!”

Maybe we’d better call shooting sprees a cry for help because the poor guy is just confused and unhappy.

And say what you like about suicide bombers, they are also killing radical Islamists!

Your boy tsam had the biggest warbird boner ever this weekend. Saw the Thunderbirds doing hella crazy shit in their F16s. God I wanted to be a fighter pilot when I was a teenager. Lousy vision. No dice.

There was an air show at Fairchild AFB. It was fucking spectacular, people.

We had one of the Blue Angel pilots come and speak at my junior high class one time. I think they even did a flyover for us, but that was 4 decades ago, my memory is beginning to fray, as the fraile said to the janitor.

Many (20+) years ago I got stoned at a party with a guy who claimed to be one of the Blue Angels. I said, don’t they test you; he said, yes, but I don’t smoke during those months — implying an airshow season? — and I don’t need it, either, I get high off flying (or something to that effect).

Seems like an odd thing to lie about while passing a joint, but who knows. He seemed plausible.

after all, it led me to read this quote which leads me to understand that boehner does not know what astute means and he are not one:

“But I am astute to understand that every proposal that has come out of this administration to deal with climate change involves hurting our economy and killing American jobs.”

same dogwhistle, different mis-used vocabulary word…

Every time I see the use of a real word in a context that makes no sense, I try to figure out what the word they thought they were using is. In this case, I think it’s a drooped “enough.” That is, he meant to say “I am astute enough to understand …” that his orders are to oppose anything and everything proposed by the current occupant of the White House, if said occupant continues to not have an (R) after his name.

That’s what I thought. Had he said “astute enough,” it would not prove he knows the meaning of “astute.”

I’ve pondered whether Boehner is dumb, and my conclusion is that the question is unanswerable. He is a highly specialized life-form, perfectly suited to his role, no more no less. It’d be like asking if an octopus is dumb.

I certainly hope you all saw Cosmos last night, wherein NDT laid the climate change arguments to complete and utter waste. I love how he can do that without calling deniers stupid, but there’s just enough of an implication there to get the message across.

I always go with my standard bitch-out speech: You are NOT ALLOWED to have an opinion about a scientific fact. You are also not allowed to argue with scientists who study these things for a living.

That’s what I thought. Had he said “astute enough,” it would not prove he knows the meaning of “astute.”

I’ve pondered whether Boehner is dumb, and my conclusion is that the question is unanswerable. He is a highly specialized life-form, perfectly suited to his role, no more no less. It’d be like asking if an octopus is dumb.

undoubtedly he meant astute enough, but in his haste to relieve his i-hate-obama boner, he was so eager to make sure he crammed in ‘hurting our economy’ and ‘killing american jobs’ he prematurely ejaculated his talking point…

t’sam, the comment quoting Anatole France was authentically mine. Anything that may have appeared in this thread under my name between then and now was probably Pennis trying and failing to sound like me; I missed it anyway.

As long as you have my attention, I tend to agree that the distinction between a cult and a religion is largely numerical, whether it’s the number of people who follow its reality-tunnel or the number of years it’s been in operation.

(I wanted to say something about your standard bitch-out speech, but it’s a quibble over phrasing and I can’t currently figure out how I’d phrase it better, so I’ll get back to that when and if I work it out.)

I always go with my standard bitch-out speech: You are NOT ALLOWED to have an opinion about a scientific fact. You are also not allowed to argue with scientists who study these things for a living.

There are arguments and there are arguments. So there’s a difference between questioning someone’s findings, especially when they conflict with established knowledge and flat out saying “I just don’t believe it no matter what you say.”

As long as you have my attention, I tend to agree that the distinction between a cult and a religion is largely numerical, whether it’s the number of people who follow its reality-tunnel or the number of years it’s been in operation.

DSM-IV gives religious belief a special exemption from delusion disorder. Because numbers or something. It’s funny to read – there’s a detailed description of what exactly delusion disorders are, which is immediately followed by “widely held delusions such as religious belief don’t count.”

Big difference between knowing what the findings are and proposing a different hypothesis.

These guys say “in my opinion, climate change isn’t happening” or “isn’t man-made”. That’s an opinion disputing a scientific finding of fact and is a foul.

Whatever the case, the findings are beyond dispute now. The number of scientists that dispute these findings line up with the number of them that said leaded gas and cigarettes aren’t health hazards. Those are spokesmen, not scientists.

Whatever the case, the findings are beyond dispute now. The number of scientists that dispute these findings line up with the number of them that said leaded gas and cigarettes aren’t health hazards. Those are spokesmen, not scientists.

Many of them are the same exact people. Charming folks, hired gun pundits…

Many of them are the same exact people. Charming folks, hired gun pundits…

I don’t know what makes some people choose a living preying on other humans. I don’t crew a viking ship to plunder monasteries in Ireland, I don’t sell snake oil to sick people, I don’t fleece a flock of gullible believers and I don’t pretend to be a scientist to prop up petroleum companies at the expense of every other living thing on the planet.

I don’t sell snake oil to sick people, I don’t fleece a flock of gullible believers and I don’t pretend to be a scientist to prop up petroleum companies at the expense of every other living thing on the planet.

These guys say “in my opinion, climate change isn’t happening” or “isn’t man-made”. That’s an opinion disputing a scientific finding of fact and is a foul.

Right, the Lalala I can’t hear yoous are at best, stupid and lazy. But even if you assume someone who has been bombarded with Faux news crap or was home schooled by some moron who has questions of the “But I heard” type, I don’t think any one has a problem with that kind of argument because it hopefully leads to enlightenment.

But that’s one thing that makes Nye and Tyson so great. They like teaching and they’re willing to have that argument. Over and over again.

As an aside, I’m also thinking more of medical research where there are enough boners pulled to make me say “Show your work,” whenever there is another Big. Breakthrough!

Having nothing better to do, I present to you here what I mentioned earlier.

According to the DSM, delusion is

“A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (e.g. it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility. Delusional conviction occurs on a continuum and can sometimes be inferred from an individual’s behavior. It is often difficult to distinguish between a delusion and an overvalued idea (in which case the individual has an unreasonable belief or idea but does not hold it as firmly as is the case with a delusion)”

So yeah, religious belief is a delusion but it’s totally okay and non-pathological if enough other people believe it. For whatever values of “enough” apply.

“A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary.

Reminds me of the final years of Bush the Lesser, when polls showed his popularity in the low double digits all over the world— with the exception of the US, where he remained as popular as ever with the gun-totin’, Bible-thumpin’ gay-hatin’ GOP base.

It is often difficult to distinguish between a delusion and an overvalued idea

I’m not so sure this is true. The idea that all the illegal mexicans are getting gazillions of dollars in welfare and phones every year and that’s why Obama is black and real americans are white with shaggy beards…what?

Delusion is acceptance of something that is objectively false. About 90% of what conservatives believe is objectively false, therefore they are delusional except for liberals who are the REAL delusional haters of america and stuff.

I would’ve put the number higher. What’s the ten “sane” percent made up of? I’m guessing it must be the absolute basics, i.e. “water is wet” “fire will burn you” and shit like that. Y’know, stuff you’re pretty sure about by age 3 or so.

I’ve pondered whether Boehner is dumb, and my conclusion is that the question is unanswerable. He is a highly specialized life-form, perfectly suited to his role, no more no less. It’d be like asking if an octopus is dumb.

Oh, I’d vote for an octopus over him. They can change to nicer colors. Plus, being able to unscrew a jam jar from the inside might be precisely the skill set needed to get something done in Congress.

I would’ve put the number higher. What’s the ten “sane” percent made up of? I’m guessing it must be the absolute basics, i.e. “water is wet” “fire will burn you” and shit like that. Y’know, stuff you’re pretty sure about by age 3 or so.

Upon further consideration, I have to stipulate that if Obama said water is wet or that fire will burn you, conservatives would reflexively deny it.

This would be a good time to haul out this old chestnut: “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” – Isaac Asimov

I was told when I was a small, brattish tsam that I was to respect the opinions of others. When I got older, I paid attention in school and read books and junk and realized that I’m supposed to be respecting opinions on music and food and shit like that. Having the opinion that Barack Obama is a socialist is not a respectable opinion. It’s just being dumb and I figure it’s my responsibility to tell the person he/she is dumb.

where an internet meme seems to have caused some younguns to stab another youngun?

I would rephrase that to “where unsupervised, gullible children with a mean streak a mile wide blamed a internet meme for doing something horrifying.”” Not to exonerate the weirdos who seem to enjoy crafting purportedly real boogeymen, but I find it hard to assign more than like 15% of the blame to the internet for this one. Those kids were at prime “Lord of the Flies” age and allowed themselves to be way to carried away by something barely more sophisticated than a campfire horror story. I suspect there is a lot more to the story than a random internet meme, no matter how superficially convincing.